Global News

By Alexandra Valencia Reuters Support for Ecuadorean leftist Luisa Gonzalez’s call for a recount in the country’s presidential election was dwindling on Monday, as a growing number of prominent members of her party said President Daniel Noboa had secured a full term in Sunday’s vote. Noboa’s support was holding at 55.6%, the level at which it remained for nearly the entire count. Gonzalez has 44.4% support. Noboa and electoral authorities said on Sunday he had won the contest, leading by more than 1 million votes in a surprising sweep after a tight February first round, when he finished ahead by just over 16,700 votes. Gonzalez told supporters on Sunday she did not accept the results, which she called “grotesque” fraud, and that she would  demand a recount . She offered no evidence of fraud, nor did she immediately call for protests. Gonzalez had not appeared publicly on Monday as of late afternoon. Some ballot box tallies lacked proper signatures, said Andres Arauz, a former...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Yomna Ehab and Jaidaa Taha Reuters Mediator Egypt has presented a new Israeli proposal for a Gaza ceasefire to Hamas, Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said on Monday, but a senior Hamas official said at least two elements of the proposal were non-starters. Citing sources, Al Qahera said mediators awaited Hamas’ response. Hamas said in a statement later in the day that it was studying the proposal and that it will submit its response “as soon as possible”. The militant group reiterated its core demand that a ceasefire deal must end the war in Gaza and achieve a full Israeli pull-out from the strip. Earlier, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the proposal did not meet the Palestinian group’s demand that Israel commit to a complete halt of hostilities. In the proposal, Israel also for the first time called for the disarmament of Hamas in the next phase of negotiations, which the group will not agree to, Abu Zuhri said. “Handing o...

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of a major camp for displaced people in North Darfur, the paramilitary group said on Sunday, after a four-day assault the government and aid groups have said left hundreds dead or wounded. The fighting has centred around the Zamzam camp, which, along with the nearby Abu Shouk camp, hosts some 700,000 people displaced by Sudan’s war. The assault has destroyed shelters, markets, and healthcare facilities, aid groups said. The RSF said the camp was being used as a base by what it called “mercenary factions”. But humanitarian groups denounced the assault as a targeted attack on vulnerable civilians, including women, children and elderly people, who are already facing famine. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), a Darfur militia allied to the national army, has been fighting the RSF around the city of al-Fashir, around 15 km (9.3 miles) from Zamzam, with the help of other local armed groups. Tens of thousands of camp residents have fled to a...

A devastating assault by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Zamzam Camp for displaced people near al-Fasher has left hundreds dead or wounded, the foreign ministry and aid groups said on Saturday, in what some described as one of the worst violations since the war began. The first wave of multiple attacks began on Thursday, according to a release from advocacy group the General Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees, with the assaults continuing through Friday and Saturday, destroying homes, markets, and healthcare facilities. That left “hundreds dead and wounded, the majority of whom were also women and children”, the organisation said. It condemned the attack as “a war crime and crime against humanity”. Similar assaults on Abu Shouk Camp earlier in the week killed 35 civilians, it added. “The humanitarian situation in al-Fasher is collapsing,” its statement read, pointing to famine, a lack of medicine, and total insecurity. UN Humanitarian Coordinator Clementi...

By Aysha SAFI AFP Four men were publicly executed in Afghanistan on Friday, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions at sports stadiums in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an AFP tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. “They were made to sit and turn their backs to us. Relatives from the victims’ families stood behind and shot them with a gun,” Mohammad Iqbal Rahimyar, a 48-year-old spectator, told AFP. The men had been “sentenced to retaliatory punishment” for shooting other men, after their cases were “examined very precisely...

China  announced countermeasures by raising tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% starting Saturday. The U.S. and China have escalated a new trade war by raising tariffs even as  U.S. President Donald Trump  hit a pause on tariffs for other countries. China notably had said it would fight the American tariffs with its own countermeasures, calling Trump’s actions “economic bullying,” which led Trump to retaliate by continuously hiking up tariffs this week. Trump’s universal tariffs on China total 145%. When Trump announced Wednesday that China faced 125% tariffs, he did not include a 20% tariff on China tied to its role in fentanyl production. Trump’s actions led business executives to warn of a  potential recession , and some of the top U.S.  trading partners  to retaliate with their own  import taxes , before the pause. But Trump and China continued raising the tariffs in a tit for tat. “The U.S. alternately raising abnormally high tariffs on Chi...

Israel said Wednesday its troops were seizing “large areas” in Gaza and making the Palestinian territory “smaller and more isolated”, as an air strike on a residential block killed at least 23 people. Defence Minister Israel Katz’s comments come weeks into a renewed offensive by the military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million people. French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile said that France plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the “coming months”, a move that risks antagonising Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature. Katz said that “large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated”, during a visit to the newly announced Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis. Katz emphasised that Israel would keep increasing pressure on Gaza “until the hostages are freed...